Mike Rogers: Al Qaeda ‘more aggressive’

Rep. Mike Rogers said Tuesday that Al Qaeda is stronger than ever, and that they are doing all the things necessary to prepare a strike.

“The Al Qaeda threat today is more diverse and more aggressive with more threat streams than we’ve seen before 9/11. So we think that they’re feeling empowered,” the Michigan Republican said on CNN’s “The Situation Room” on Tuesday.

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Responding to a CNN report that a large gathering of Al Qaeda was caught on video and not disrupted by the U.S., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said that the terrorist organization is strengthening itself.

“The less pressure you put on them, the more they take that as a victory,” Rogers said. “The more that they believe they can get away with plotting, planning, organizing, as you saw there, finance training, all of the things that they would need to do to strike a Western target, they’re going through that process, including, by the way, bringing very sophisticated people to devise new devices that would try to get around security protocols at airports and other places.”

Rogers was vague on specifics, being privy to classified information in his position atop the Intelligence Committee, but he said leaks last year about operations in Yemen have had an effect in the region, although he would not say they alone made Al Qaeda more brazen.